Environmentalist argues Hamden turf field risks despite opposition

Wetlands panel OKs plan for high school; PZC up next

By Kate Ramunni kramunni@nhregister.com @kateramunni on Twitter

Published 6:23 pm, Friday, January 8, 2016

Photo: Journal Register Co.

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ANNA BISARO — NEW HAVEN REGISTER FILE PHOTO
Nandy Alderman, left, joined U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Dr. Homero Horari of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City to discuss the potential dangers of crumb rubber pieces in synthetic turf fields in November in West Hartford. less

ANNA BISARO — NEW HAVEN REGISTER FILE PHOTO
Nandy Alderman, left, joined U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Dr. Homero Horari of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City to discuss the potential ... more

Photo: Journal Register Co.

Environmentalist argues Hamden turf field risks despite opposition

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HAMDEN >> A local environmentalist got her say at a meeting this week on dangers posed by a proposed synthetic turf field on wetlands around Hamden High School, but not before being met with resistance from a lawyer hired by the school board.

Alderman applied in December for intervenor status on the application by the Board of Education for the turf. On Wednesday afternoon, she was forced to resubmit the application just hours before the meeting, Alderman said, because the hearing date had been postponed from December to January, which meant her previous intervenor status was now invalid.

“It was absolutely amazing what happened to me,” Alderman said Thursday. “They were going to have a hearing in December, and I was told it wasn’t a public hearing so if I wanted to speak I would have to be an intervenor, which of course I had never done in my life.”

She filed for intervenor status and submitted her testimony, but then the meeting was postponed until Wednesday.

“On Wednesday at around 3 p.m., I got an email saying the Hamden Board of Education had hired a lawyer who says my intervention was no longer valid because of the dates, so I had to redo it,” she said.

After spending the rest of the afternoon getting the paperwork notarized again and making more copies, Alderman said she arrived at the meeting Wednesday night only to face more opposition from the school board’s attorney, Ann M. Catino of the Hartford law firm Halloran and Sage LLP.

“She made a case for me not to be able to speak,” Alderman said. “I was dumbfounded.”

Catino couldn’t be reached for comment following the meeting. In a letter to the Inland Wetlands Commission dated Wednesday, she asserted that “the Notice of Intervention is plainly insufficient as a verified pleading” under state statutes.

“It fails to set forth specific factual allegations of any alleged unreasonable pollution related to matters within the Inland Wetlands jurisdiction,” the letter said.

It is “not specific to this application and is insufficient to grant them intervention,” Catino maintained.

“The agency’s jurisdiction is limited to a wetland and watercourse area. In this case, the area is not a wetland as no wetland soils have been identified; rather, it is a drainage channel that enters a culvert underneath the Merritt Parkway and conveys water from one culvert to another,” she said in the letter. “The intervention, if granted, does not itself serve to confer any authority beyond the commission’s existing regulatory authority ... any arguments or claims related to any alleged toxicological or health effects should be excluded from this proceeding.”

According to the state statutes, “consideration must be given to whether the applicant’s proposed activity is ‘reasonably likely to have the unreasonable effect of polluting, impairing or destroying the public trust in the air, water or other natural resources of the state,’” she stated. “Although the burden is on the intervenor to prove this argument, the applicant contends and will demonstrate that there is no pollution, impairment or destruction of the water resources.”

The claims “are not based upon any empirical evidence regarding this site, are devoid of any well-established principles, represent a misapplication of the studies referenced and have no bearing on this application,” Catino wrote.

“I gave testimony about leaching and what was in the crumb rubber and why that was bad for the watercourses,” she said.

Catino “came back and said everything I said wasn’t relevant and therefore didn’t matter,” Alderman said. The commission voted to approve the application.

Alderman attributes the approval to the fact that the wetlands on the site were minimal.

“I think it didn’t have a huge watercourse — they kept referring to the ditch. The field is not actually next to a river or an active stream,” she said. “However, if this is approved by P&Z, they will have 80,000 ground-up rubber tires behind the high school, and when it really rains, that’s all going to drain somewhere. It’s not insignificant.”

In October, the town unveiled a new synthetic multi-purpose artificial turf field at the high school. The latest plan will replace a degrading natural grass baseball field nearby.

When the Planning and Zoning Commission holds a public hearing on the application next week, Alderman said she will speak about the dangers having the rubber there poses to the health of students.

“I couldn’t bring up anything about health and I promised I would not” at the Inland Wetlands Commission meeting, she said. “I simply submitted information about the heavy metals that are in it,” she said, including information from Yale University about chemicals found in the rubber that are toxic to aquatic life, a Washington State University study on the leaching of crumb rubber and mulch, and an advisory issued by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture advising not to use rubber mulch because it will kill plants.

Alderman said that ultimately she was happy to be able to speak, even if what she said didn’t prevent the commission’s approval.

“They played hardball. They did not want me speaking,” Alderman said. “They tried to do everything they could to both keep me from speaking and then refuting everything I had to say.”